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Shawn Layden and the PlayStation gang helped save my life
Part 3: “Without purpose, we would not exist”
The gang at PlayStation — Sid, Justin, and Aram — changed that by doing what might be ‘simple’ and ‘easy,’ but something that many people, some who I’ve known for countless years, didn’t — listen and talk. More than anything, these guys made me feel more than a ‘cancer patient’ by allowing me to engage with them. Sometimes talking about comics, other times games, and much to their annoyance, I’m sure, business. You don’t need to be a long time reader of this site to know that I’m often far more interested in the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ than the end result, hence my deep love for talking shop.
To do that with people that I respect in a company that I adore gave me a sense of self-worth. A connection to the industry that I’m so passionate about. I felt like I mattered, outside of my immediate family, and I cannot explain how uplifting that feeling is when you’re in a dark place. So imagine how I felt when Shawn Layden, a person whom I have great admiration for, but only met a handful of times, reached out to see how I was doing. I’d never understood teen girls and their reactions towards their favorite boy bands until that moment. After pulling myself together and reading over what he had to say a dozen times to make sure it was indeed Shawn, I quickly (at sloth speed of course, because, well, chemo) went to Allegra Osati to show off my clearly now BFF.
Throughout my entire chemo process and beyond, entirely privately, Shawn has been this beacon of inspiration for me that’s made me feel worthy. To know that I, Sohrab Osati, as a human mattered and was worthy of exchanges here and there was everything. Of course, I would abuse that friendship here and there by getting his opinions on some of my writing, because, well, it’s Shawn fucking Layden. Like I’m going to pass on getting his take on work when I’m regularly armchair quarterbacking how Sony and PlayStation should work.
Why Sony should tap into their Japanese roots
How it can help them overcome their lackluster marketing efforts and establish a bold identity
One thing that plagues Sony in the ever-evolving AI-powered, cloud-connected tech landscape is a sense of identity. Who is Sony and what differentiates them from Apple, who routinely touts their connection to their home state with every product featuring the phrase “designed by Apple in California,” or the soulless mega-corp that is Samsung that makes and offers just about every product you can think of? And don’t even get me started on the flood of tech products from Chinese companies who are eager to copy/rip off anything they can get their hands on. Surely Sony puts more thought and care into their products than cheap knockoffs, but with so much imitation taking place, you wouldn’t know it from just holding a Sony product box or visiting their website, versus any other brand out there.
To make matters worse for them, the consumers of the past who cared about ‘tech specs’ and drooled over hardware are a dying breed who Sony, for decades, built their company on. Now, the generation that is coming to financial stability and is driving consumer purchasing habits grew up on J-pop and anime. They’re the generation who cares about the planet, its people, and culture.
These are all major ingredients of Japan, both past and present, that infatuate an entire generation that’s quite familiar with their culture and hold it in high regard. How or why Sony isn’t further tapping into their deep corporate, as well as national, culture is beyond me. If Apple credits their connection and inspiration for many of their products to California, surely Sony can do the same with Japan, but it’s the opposite. You’d be hard pressed to find much of any reference to Japan on Sony’s own site, let alone in their countless videos.
Kaz Hirai was seen jamming during the 2020 Grammys
Why Sony needs more of that and Mike Fasulo
More than ever, consumers and employees have their pick of products to buy and companies to work for. With so many options at their disposal, consumers, especially younger ones, often look towards brands that resonate with them, and that starts with the CEO. Now it’s not as if ‘kids’ are saying, “hey, that Tim Cook guy sure looks cool with his kicks” and therefore now wants to buy an iPhone. But Tom Cook’s relaxed nature then extends down to other execs in the company and the entire culture, which allows for more fun and personable messaging from the company, which is then felt through their social platforms and wide-scale marketing, as well as retail stores. Basically, the CEO and his posturing becomes a reflection of the company, and vise versa.
The same goes for would-be employees — do you want to work at a company that has a relatable, if not personable CEO who is willing to talk about social issues that matter, and therefore are expressed through the company? Or do you want to work under a suit and tie exec who is only thinking about crunching the numbers? Even if that’s not the truth about them, the suit and tie represent that.
At Sony, Kaz was that — someone who could straddle the line between the heavy Japanese core of the company and its western divisions. For Sony, this is extremely important as its entertainment divisions (PlayStation, Sony Pictures, and Sony Music) have become a larger part of the company’s focus and bottom line — all who are Western-oriented.
Sony Q3 2019 earnings overview: revenue 
3%, profits 
20%
Image sensors 
, Sony Pictures 
, PlayStation 
, cameras 
, Xperia 
, TV 
Sony continues to be a company in transition that cannot build sustained momentum out of its various divisions like its entertainment arm that houses its film studio and music label. Their electronics business, on the other hand, also continues to shrink with sales across cameras, smartphones, and TV down. PlayStation, their darling and typical money maker is also experiencing a slowdown in software and hardware sales as the console enters its seventh year on the market while PS5 looms with a late 2020 release. Fortunately, their image sensors, found in not just Alpha cameras, but inside of various cars, as well as smartphones from Apple and Huawei has once again helped the company remain financially healthy.
A decade ago, Sony quarterly earnings results brought with them a topic of “how much loss.” Now that discussion has turned towards how much profits, a sign of how far the company has come. For Q3 FY19, Sony reported profits of $2.10 billion (JPY220 billion), down 20% compared to Q3 FY18 profits of $3.83 billion. Revenue, however, was up 3% to $22.5 billion (JPY2.46 trillion) compared with $21.4 billion (JPY2.40 trillion).
Despite slowdowns in many divisions, Sony raised its FY19 profits forecast by 5% to $8.1 billion (JPY880 billion) and revenue by 1% to $77.46 billion (JYP8500 trillion).
For comparison, on January 28th, Apple reported its most recent earnings report, where for the three months, Wearables, the division that includes Apple Watch and AirPods, was responsible for $10 billion in revenue. The company as a whole? $91.8 billion. Again, for those three months. I point this out because Apple too is a company that’s focused on the premium market, but unlikely Sony, they have an uncanny ability to convey that message to consumers, and the numbers show it.
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